With the gourd in hand, Pilgrim beckoned to a judge to come to him and whispered something into his ear; no one knows what he said. He handed the gourd over to the judge, who then descended the dais and jumped high into the air, calling, “Qin Hui, Qin Hui!”

By that time, Qin Hui’s heart was dead, but there was still a thread of qi in him.¹ The moment he answered, he was sucked into the gourd. [K. Great Sage, be cautious! Being so divinely treacherous, how could Pilgrim know whether he had ever changed into a metal drill?]

Seeing this, Pilgrim commanded, “Bring it here, bring it here!” The judge hastily entered the curtains and presented the gourd to Pilgrim, who put a seal over its mouth that bore the words, “Make haste to follow the decree of the Supreme Old Master.” After two hours and forty-five minutes, Qin Hui had been reduced to pus. [C. The case cannot be closed until Qin Hui becomes pus.] [K. No sooner did the councilor drink the pus wine than he had to return the favor. Let the people in the world know: Don’t take sitting at King Yama’s banquet lightly.] He ordered the judge to bring a gold goblet with clawed feet, tilted the gourd, and poured out the blood.

Holding the cup with both hands, Pilgrim knelt to present it to General Yue, saying, “Please have some of the wine made of Qin Hui’s blood, Master.”

But General Yue refused to drink it, pushing it away.

“Master Yue,” said Pilgrim, “don’t misunderstand me. One should hate that traitor of the Song; one should not take pity on him.”

“It’s not that I am taking pity on him,” said General Yue.

“If it is not for the sake of pity,” said Pilgrim, “why don’t you take a bit of the blood wine?”

“Disciple, what you don’t understand,” said General Yue, “is that if one happens to eat or drink half a mouthful of the flesh and blood of evil ministers and traitors, one’s stomach will stink for ten thousand years.”

Pilgrim, seeing Master Yue determined not to drink it, called over a red-hearted ghost and gave it to him to drink.²

As soon as the red-hearted ghost had drunk it, he walked to the rear part of the palace. An hour later, there was suddenly a racket at the front gate, and the gatekeepers struck the drum that announced the occurrence of treachery. The staff of ghosts, of five colors and standing in five directions, all braced themselves. Pilgrim was about to ask the judges what the matter was, when three hundred disheveled ghosts, surrounding one that carried the head of a judge with green teeth and emerald eyes, red hair and red beard, thronged onto the marble stairs.

“Lord,” they reported, “when the red-hearted ghost drank the wine of Qin Hui’s blood, he at once became a different person. He rushed into the Purple Palace where one’s destiny is determined, drew the knife from his waist, assassinated the judge who had been his benefactor and teacher, and hastened through the Pass of Life and Death to be reincarnated.” [C. Delightful! Extraordinary! What we don’t know is the era into which he was reincarnated.] [K. He’s off to become a grand councilor again.]

Even as Pilgrim was dismissing the lesser ghosts, General Yue got to his feet. Outside the curtains the drums rolled, light music was played, and spears and sabers swished amid a forest of halberds and swords. Fifty thousand chief judges knocked their heads on the ground to see Lord Yue off. “Rise,” said Pilgrim. The chief judges responded, and then each left the court. In addition, innumerable fierce-looking ghosts with green faces and red muscles prostrated themselves on the ground to see Lord Yue off.³ “Rise,” said Pilgrim to them. There came another three hundred righteous ghosts with yellow teeth, all of them carrying priceless halberds, who reported, “We have come to escort Lord Yue.”

Pilgrim ordered these ghosts with yellow teeth to escort Lord Yue to his mansion.

General Yue and Pilgrim walked together to the front gate, where there was another roll of the drums and music from the metal horns. Pilgrim saluted him with clasped hands and accompanied General Yue farther as he walked. When they reached the Pass of Life and Death, there was a roll of drums, and ten thousand ghosts gave a great shout.

Pilgrim, making a deep bow with clasped hands, saw General Yue off, calling out with a loud voice, “Master, please come again when you are free so that I might ask you for further instruction.” Then he saluted with clasped hands again.

Pilgrim, having seen off Master Yue, stood there in midair [K. With his mind set right, he is able to stand in midair. This anticipates the Lord of the Void.]. He took off the imperial crown with the flat top and nine tassels of jade jewels, the robe with the patterns of coiling dragons, and the pair of pitiless iron-clad shoes, and took out the jade seal of King Yama, tossed them all at the Pass of Life and Death, and left. [K. This episode suddenly breaks off. Wonderful!]

The story continues: East of the Mountains⁴ [K. The Mountain Man of Wuling says: By clarifying that it is “east of the Mountains,” this means the area that the Jin occupied during the Southern Song.] there was a restaurant whose owner had lost all his hair, and his teeth had all fallen out: no one knew how many centuries old he was. All day long he sat in the restaurant serving customers. On his signpost was written, “New (Xin) Ancient’s Restaurant,” under which was a line in smaller characters, “Formerly known as New (Xin) Layman.”

It turned out that when New Layman made his return from the World of the Witless, the Jade Gate Pass was shut tight. Since he was unable to reenter the World of the Ancients, he settled in the World of the Future for the time being [K. Enter this artery of the storyline.], making a living by running a restaurant. He was of the sort who would not forget his roots, so he changed his name into “New Ancient.” [C. Echoes previous text.]

On that day he was sitting in his restaurant sipping tea [K. This connects back to the tea drinking in chapter 7 and is a lead-in for chapter 13. Makes full use of the marvelous technique of “the snake in the grass or discontinuous chalk line.”⁵], when he became aware of Pilgrim Sun off to the east wildly cursing, “What a rank smell! What a rank smell!” He came hobbling over, stumbling with every step.

“Welcome, sir,” said New Ancient.

“Who do you think you are,” said Pilgrim, “that you dare to refer to me as ‘sir’?”⁶

New Ancient said, “I am the contemporary ancient, or the ancient contemporary. If I tell you about it, you’ll laugh.”

“Just tell me,” said Pilgrim, “I won’t laugh at you.”

New Ancient said, “I am New Layman from the World of the Ancients.”

No sooner had Pilgrim heard that than he hastily started all over again and made a salute with raised, clasped hands, calling, “Benefactor Xin (New)! Were it not for you, my benefactor, I would never have gotten through the Jade Gate Pass.”

New Ancient was taken aback by this, but Pilgrim directly told him his name and background and all of his concerns. New Ancient laughed: “Mr. Sun, you need to pay further respects to me.”⁷

Pilgrim said, “Don’t make a joke of this. I have something urgent to ask you. Why is there such a rank smell? It’s not the smell of fish, nor the smell of sheep and goats.”

New Ancient said, “If you want a rank smell, come here to my place, but if you don’t want a rank smell, don’t come here. My place is next door to the Tartars.⁸ [K. The Mountain Man of Wuling says: After the Southern Song was the Yuan, so it is said that the place “is next door to the Tartars.”] If you go farther, your whole body will smell like that.” [C. Now referring to the Yuan dynasty. How thorough.]

Having heard this, Pilgrim thought to himself, “I, Old Monkey, am a furry ball. If I pick up some of that rank smell, won’t I just become a stinking ape? Furthermore, when I was the acting King Yama in Hell, I condemned Qin Hui to be sliced into millions of pieces. [K. Returns to this artery of the plot.] Now that I think about it, the First Emperor of Qin is a Qin, and Qin Hui is a Qin too.⁹ If Qin Hui is not his descendant, then he must be from a branch of the same clan. The First Emperor of Qin will hold a bellyful of grudge for that, and he will not be willing to just let me have the Mountain-Ridding Bell. [C. Mentioned.] [K. Brings attention to the theme.] If I, Old Monkey, were to resort to violence and find some way to rob him of it, it would ruin my reputation. It would be better if I just asked New Ancient about how to get out of this mirror.”

Pilgrim then asked him, “Benefactor Xin (New), might you know how I can get into the World of the Green from here?”

“The road you came in by is the road you get out by,” said New Ancient.

“Slick Chan talk,” said Pilgrim. “I know where I came from. It was easy enough to tumble down from the World of the Ancients to the World of the Future. But if one is to tumble up to the World of Ancients from the World of the Future, that would present some difficulty.”

“If that is the case,” New Ancient said, “just follow me, just follow me.”

He grabbed Pilgrim with one hand, and they set off. They walked over to the bank of a pond of green water. [K. Mountain Man of Wuling says: A pond of green water: Dui is lake. Dui is the outer trigram of Kun.¹⁰] Without saying a word, New Ancient gave Pilgrim a push that sent him rolling like a pulley until—with a bang!—Pilgrim fell into the Gallery of a Million Mirrors. [C. Ah! The Great Sage is out of that mirror.]

Pilgrim looked all around, not knowing which mirror he had leaped through. [C. Mentioned.] Afraid of wasting time there and missing his chance to rescue his master [K. Brings attention to the theme.], he turned to go down from the gallery. But he looked for a long time without finding the staircase, becoming ever more agitated and worried. He pushed the two leaves of one glass window open, only to find that there was a wonderful vermilion lattice with a cracked-ice pattern just outside the window. Fortunately, the spaces were just big enough for Pilgrim to tuck in his head and squeeze himself through.

Who would have known that fate and the times were so against him? The lattice held him fast; what clearly had been a cracked-ice pattern in the lattice had suddenly became hundreds of red threads that tied up Pilgrim so tightly that he could not budge.¹¹ [C. Let me ask: who under Heaven is not all bound up in red threads?] Pilgrim panicked and changed himself into a pearl, but the red threads became a pearl net. He was unable to roll himself out, so he instantly changed himself into a sword with a sharp bluish-green blade.¹² The red shreds then became a sheath for the sword.

Having no alternative, Pilgrim resumed his original form and cried out, “Master, where are you?! [K. Found the origin.] Do you know how much trouble your disciple has gotten into?” This said, his tears poured down in a torrent. [K. Getting rid of the illusory for the real depends on his crying.]

All of a sudden, there was a flash of light before his eyes, and an old man appeared in midair. He bowed to Pilgrim and asked, “Great Sage, why are you here?”

Pilgrim sadly told him the reason.

“Then you would not know,” said the Old Man, “that this is the palace of the King of the Lesser Moon in the World of the Green. He started out as a scholar [C. These days all scholars start out as Kings of the Lesser Moon.] [K. Starting out as a scholar, tangled in old writings, turning the classics upside down, confusing students to come—this is another version of the budding talents at the palace examination.], and so as king, he spends all day on ambitious cultural undertakings. He had Thirteen Palaces constructed to correspond to the Thirteen Classics.¹³ This is the Palace of Sixty-Four Hexagrams.¹⁴ For a moment you were confused and have walked right into the Palace of Creeping Vines, which is the Oppression of Oppression.¹⁵ [K. Mountain Man of Wuling says: The Palace of Creeping Vines is the top line in the hexagram Oppression; it is the extreme extent of oppression, so it is called the Oppression of Oppression.] That is how you got all tied up there. Let me release you from these red threads and free you to go look for your master.”

With tears in his eyes, Pilgrim said, “If you could do so, Revered Elder, I simply could not thank you enough.”

The elder began to pull and break the red threads one by one.

The moment Pilgrim was freed, he made a low bow, asking, “May I know your name, Revered Elder? When I meet the Buddha, I want to have this great merit recorded under your name.”

“Great Sage,” said the old man, “My name is Sun Wukong.”

“My name is Sun Wukong too, and now your name is Sun Wukong. On the same Register of Merit, how could there be two Sun Wukongs? Just tell me what you have done in your life, so I can remember some of those events.”

“As for the things I’ve done,” said the old man, “I’m afraid that they would frighten people to death. Five hundred years ago, I tried to have a turn sitting on the throne in the Heavenly Palace. The Jade Emperor appointed me the Custodian of the Celestial Stable. [K. Ties to the previous book.] I am none other than the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. I suffered real suffering under the Mountain of Five Phases, suffering that suffering, until I suffered my way to follow the Tang Monk to gain the Right Fruit. There was a catastrophe on the road to the West, and it so happened that I am hiding in the World of the Green.”

Pilgrim was enraged: “You foul rascal Six-Eared Macaque!¹⁶ [K. Ties to the previous book.] You’ve come to fool with me again? See my staff!” He pulled the gold-hooped staff from his ear and struck out in front of himself.

The old man shook out his sleeves and walked away, calling, “This is precisely what is called ‘the self saving itself!’ What a pity that you take the unreal as real and the real as unreal!”¹⁷ [K. Highlighting the main theme.]

Suddenly, a ray of golden light flashed into Pilgrim’s eyes, and the form of the old man was no longer to be seen. [C. It can be concluded that in this case no one else could come to his rescue.] It was then that Pilgrim realized it was an emanation of his real spirit, so he intoned his respect and hastily bowed to thank himself.

[C. The mind that saves one’s mind is the mind that is beyond one’s mind. The mind beyond one’s mind is the deluded mind; how can it come to rescue the true mind? The truth is like this. Pilgrim was confused by the demon of desire, so his mind had already become deluded. His real mind is clear about it all. Thus, what saves the deluded mind is none other than the real mind]. [K. The mind is one: there is only the true mind, and there is no deluded mind. The deluded mind is not the mind; it is the mind bewitched. The more deluded it becomes, the deeper the demon enters, and it does not expect to be rescued by an entity outside it. What saves the real mind is the real mind itself. What is saved by the real mind is the real, not the deluded. If the mind were deluded, would saving it be worthwhile?]

[K. Pilgrim changes himself into this and into that, almost forgetting his true face: this is to take a thief as one’s son. When the old man rescues him, he takes him for the Six-Eared Macaque: this is to take the host as the guest. When the golden light enters his eyes, he is suddenly enlightened, realizing for the first time that they are one, rather than two. The Dao diverges into two but fulfills itself in oneness. One means sincerity.¹⁸ Sincerity means returning to the real from the deluded. This is the pivot of Dao.]